Estimating system and component reliabilities under partial information on cause of failure

Estimating component reliabilities along with system reliability frequently requires using lifetimes from the system level. Due to cost and time constraints, however, the exact cause of system failure may be unknown. Instead it may only be ascertained that the cause of system failure is due to one component in a subset of components, e.g. the subset forms a subsystem. Confronted with such data, this article discusses how to fully exploit all of the available information using a maximum likelihood approach. We extend and clarify the useful work of Miyakawa (1984). A small Monte Carlo simulation study indicates the helpfulness of this approach.

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